Increased Capacity in WDM & MDM Networks Via Subwavelength Grating Engineering

As global internet coverage continues to expand, our communication networks must continually evolve to supply the necessary traffic. To meet these demands we must develop novel ways to further multiplex optical signals into the same waveguide, through schemes such as wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) and mode-division-multiplexing (MDM). Subwavelength gratings (SWGs) have become a popular avenue of research in silicon photonics, with a variety of applications that include filtering and index engineering. We first investigate a robust form of highly narrowband SWG Bragg gratings that can be used to design arbitrary transmission spectra with a fine degree of precision, which has the potential to improve the channel-density of WDM networks. Additionally, we have developed a novel fully-etched multimode bend using radially bridged SWG strips. Multimode photonic bends are one of the critical building-blocks of MDM networks, and a high-capacity bend with a small footprint is essential for further enhancing network density.